This is the general portrayal in fiction that any character who displays any sort of aloofness or indifference to an authority figure, for any reason, must be incredibly cool. Quite often the person against whom the "rebellion" is directed is an Obstructive Bureaucrat or some variant.

Examples:

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann plays with the trope. Once Team Dai-Gurren wins they become their own authority, and the epilogue features the kind of ultra-high-tech society (and its military) that wouldn't get built if everyone spent their time rebelling for the sake of rebelling.

Before his death, Kamina reveals his reason for wanting to fight. He fights so the younger generation such as Simon, Rossieu and the twins can live in a better world. It's one of the traits of his Hidden Depths. Ultimately though, he entrusts the future to Simon.

Hana from 7 Seeds. She dislikes being ordered around, rather taking up the reigns herself and often gets into fights or disagreements with authority figures because of this. Particularly when she refuses to properly play by her team's guide Yanagi's rules or gives him respect, as well as Ango, both with consequences.

Angel Beats!: The SSS. Since it's the afterlife, they can get away with quite a lot.

Ranma ½: Ranma Saotome has little to no respect for authority. He physically fights with teachers on a regular basis and goes out of his way to piss them off. Then again, one of his teachers disciplines him with Ki Attacks, another one tried to make him confess love to Akane during his time as a teacher, and the principal of the school is just batshit insane, so it's kind of understandable.

Robotech. Lynn-Kyle looks like he ought to be a Cool Guy. He's Tall, Dark and Handsome, the ladies drool over him. He's self-disciplined, a master of combat martial arts, and unquestionably intelligent. Some of his opinions about the situation they're all in are valid. Yet... his rebelliousness rings false, he comes across, over time, as self-righteous and selfish, increasingly so as time passes and his personal resentments against various people overcome the principles that he originally did espouse. By the end, he merely comes across as a selfish and destructive jerk.

Riki in Ai no Kusabi is notorious in the slums for being a very headstrong and defiant Badass Biker rebel. So much so that he's admired by people who have not ever met him but heard of his exploits. He's aware of his status and proud of it until he is Made A Sex Slave.

Fanfic

Child Of The Stormplays with this. On the one hand, as part of Harry's opening up and being able to express his emotions more, he becomes more confident and much more of a Deadpan Snarker (due to the profound weirdness of his life, how much of this is being a Stepford Snarker is up for debate), and it is implied that he's playing this trope straight, since he looks up to and lives with the Avengers, who are collectively described by Word of God as 'an anti-authoritarian snark patrol'. On the other, he gets gently called up on it by Sean Cassidy, who reminds him that there are boundaries.

In keeping with the above picture, Captain America in the 1970s grew increasing disenchanted with America until it climaxed with him becoming Nomad for a few adventures. Fortunately, he soon realized that he can still be Cap and fight for America's ideals, rather than its government. He ended up doing it again (this time without name change) in the 2000s after a reporter told him that America was about Facebook and voting for the girl with the biggest boobs on American Idol, and not silly things like truth and justice and being able to trust in your government without looking like a fool.

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank: Fingal takes over the computer that controls the world's weather, causing hurricanes, typhoons, and blizzards, probably killing thousands of people. The Fat Man is trying to stop him from doing so. Fingal is the hero of the movie for "fighting against the system"; Fat ManFat Bastard is the villain.

Comes up briefly a time or two in the X-Wing Series. In Michael Stackpole's run Rogue Squadron - who got that name in the first place purely for the coolness factor - is Mildly Military and quite happy to ignore minor directives and rules... which is usually seen as quite positive, with most people accepting it because they get amazing results, and the one who thinks they're irresponsible generally getting ignored. Then the complainer saves their skins after ignoring a rule himself - and rather than shrugging it off, insists that he be reported, because rigid rulebound discipline is all that keeps his people alive in the long run. In the end Rogue Leader Wedge Antilles has to accept this as valid.

During Wraith Squadron, Wedge has to train and lead a squadron of misfits that make the Rogues look rulebound, and this includes a woman with a kneejerk hostility to authority, including to him. He reflects that in the old days of the Rebel Alliance she wouldn't be considered dangerous, but just another Rebel, and eventually earns respect from her and the rest of the squadron by, when she challenges him, winning by somewhat underhanded means - proving himself still too rebellious to win conventionally.

Discussed by several characters stuck in an elevator in David Foster Wallace's posthumous novel The Pale King. A few of them point out how, in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, this trope has been made into a fashion trend in the US by the early 80's (when the story is set) for corporations and politicians to use to their advantage — the Apple 1984 ad is indirectly referenced, Ronald Reagan directly.

Crops up a lot in the Left Behind books, for some reason. Perhaps it's an attempt to counteract the fact that when the Antichrist showed up, Buck Williams and Rayford Steele immediately went out and got jobs with him (ostensibly to undermine him from within, but they never seem to actually do any of that, instead simply acting as passive Peripheral POVs), and that might look cowardly and submissive if they didn't remind you of their manliness by posturing and sneering at every minor functionary who crosses their paths.

Twilight: All the cool kids and vampires rebel against authority even when the authority figures are being reasonable:

Bella constantly disobeys and lies to her father, who happens to be the chief of police, despite the fact that he just wants her to be safe; while she loves him to bits she doesn't want to actually get married to Edward because she doesn't want to repeat her parents' mistake (while being perfectly fine with becoming an immortal vampire, faking her death, and never seeing her parents again); she fights to keep her baby even when everyone is saying it will kill her.

Edward is haughty and rude to the Volturi after they let him off for trying to expose his sparkly self to humans in an elaborate Suicide by Cop and are perfectly fine with Bella knowing about vampires as long as she's transformed quickly.

Garrett, a vampire who was transformed while fighting for the US during the American Revolution, makes a Rousing Speech against the Volturi despite the fact that he's aware his side could all be killed and their entire plan hinges on not fighting and since they don't fight it means the Volturi can find him later and end his rebellious streak for good.

In Vampire Academy, Rose Hathaway opposes authority figures on principle. Butting heads with the headmistress of the Academy and a few teachers. She gets some admirers this way.

Hawkeye from Mash might fall under this, although he usually only rebels against authority when authority is being stupid. Which is, admittedly, every episode. This is the whole purpose of the show, to rebel against authority. Hawkeye even interrupts the peace talks because he feels they aren't doing enough.

Other episodes play with this trope. For instance, Frank Burns was left in temporary command and decided that the medical staff were verging on alcoholism, and declares the 4077th 'dry'. By the end of the episode, despite Hawkeye's furious protests and rants, it's become clear and is portrayed as such that Frank did have a point, he just took it a bit too far. More brutally, on a later occasion Hawkeye himself is left in temporary command of the 4077th, and rapidly gains a different perspective on the sort of shenanigans he himself often pulls, to the point that he actually muses over charging B.J. Hunnicutt with being AWOL because he wasn't there when Hawkeye needed him for a medical crisis (he was responding to a different problem on his own, without authorization). Margaret even teases Hawkeye about this realization.

Played for laughs with Britta Perry on Community; she clearly believes this, about herself especially, but her overall cluelessness about many of the things she protests about (or life in general) and the fact that deep down she's basically sweet and Adorkable no matter how much she wishes she wasn't means that she generally tends to come across as self-righteous, annoying and not nearly as cool as she believes.

Coulson's team is authority and they don't rebel the higher authorities in SHIELD. Indeed, they belong to the loyalist faction during the civil war that starts in "Turn, Turn Turn". However, they have several Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right moments.

American Idiot plays this straight at first, with the main character Jimmy (styling himself "Jesus of Suburbia") leaving his town to live a punk life in the city. Then the trope is deconstructed when he eventually despairs and returns home to life the conformist life he rebelled against.

One of the premises of Cyberpunk2020, the characters are typically depicted as being future Robin Hoods who use their skills to challenge the megacorporations who rule over the world with an iron fist. Heck, there's even an attribute called "Cool"!

In this case 'authority' is plans imposed on the characters by the undead lord of a dead kingdom, but it's hard to deny that in Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star rebellion is striking out to risk pain and disappointment for an uncertain future, and embodied by Yuuya, that is cool. Even some of the characters agree.

Sal of Dumbing of Age has a leather jacket, a Cool Bike, a knack for attracting admirers whether or not she actually wants to, and zero patience for rules. This applies to everything from maths to room-mate agreements to Mario Kart.

Ruth: The fire alarm is not a toy. It's not.

Sal: Shit, now ah ain't never wanted to pull a fire alarm so bad in all my life.

Meg: Hi, Craig. Umm, I was wondering if maybe you would want to, I don't know, go out sometime? Craig Hoffman: Huh, that's about as likely as me playing by someone else's rules besides my own. Which I would never do. I play by my own rules, nobody else's, not even my own.

Rush Limbaugh (in a guest appearance) pointed out that Brian does this because he liked being the underdog.

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